Soldier's Orders
by cadeleus
Summary: Sequel to Powerless. Things are okay now. Current friendships are at their most pleasant (for the most part), new friendships are made, and things are at their overall most harmonious. But no good deed goes unpunished.
1. Prologue: In Quiet Night

PROLOGUE

Warning: EXTREME sexual abuse trigger warning, this chapter lacks... subtlety. But I'll put three zeroes (000) before and after the graphic abuse bit. But keep in mind there are other graphic things after that point. So heed caution.

xxxxx

The Grady Motel had been founded seventeen years before families in need were first housed there, and twenty-six years before Clarisse and her father had been found home in room A14.

Their room was on the bottom floor, and very close to the handicapped parking spots, an accommodation made exclusively for Clarisse's father. He depended on two prosthetic legs and a walking stick. Clarisse promised him that when she got older, she'd be strong enough to lift him into his motorized wheelchair, and he wouldn't have to push himself so much to walk. But for now, she was only seven, and unable to lift him. He reassured her she needn't worry about it - he liked walking. It made him feel capable. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world but he enjoyed feeling mobile on his own.

There was a very "underground" sort of community within the motel, engaged in only by those who lived there. The founder, Bob Grady, was a generous man, but he had a very high ego. He wanted his establishment to appear as high-class as a motel could be, and he was afraid that having the homeless living amongst it would taint the motel's "glorious" image. So with a heavy heart, the economically-challenged patrons tried to blend in with those who stayed overnight in the midst of road trips and during vacations. The camaraderie was ever-so-subtle, and Clarisse never understood why their generosity was done with such a shameful hush-hush. Her father had gone as far as to teach her routes to neighbors' rooms to ask for things like a cup of milk or an egg or two, routes that would prevent the non-homeless from catching wind of it.

The shame she learned to feel deep down because of their domestic predicament left her feeling lonely. She adored her father and their neighbors, but there was a small twinge of sad bitterness inside of her. She didn't have any true friends her age. Children at school often disregarded her, whispering to each other about the little smelly, dirty, homeless girl in their class. Teachers grew weary of her constant demand for attention and her attempts at being a likable class clown. She received only dismissive hums and doors in her face. The children living in the motels weren't allowed to play outside, a rule established to keep guests unaware of the homeless community.

One summer afternoon, with tears in her eyes at the remembrance that a boy in her class was currently having a birthday party, one to which she'd not been invited, she decided to break the rules.

She waited until after dinner, when her father went to bed at exactly eight o' clock, and snuck outside, holding the room key. As she crept out of the door, she began to devise a plan to get all the other children outside to play.

That is, until she found a girl sitting at the top of the steps outside.

She was sitting just a few feet away from room 52B. Nobody lived there, but the girl didn't look like a tourist. Her black hair looked un-brushed, and she was wearing a stained dress that appeared a tad too small for her.

Clarisse ascended the steps and sat next to her, and the girl looked at her with something that resembled fear.

"Did you just move here?" Clarisse asked. The girl began to open her mouth as if to respond, but she closed it and looked ahead, away from Clarisse.

Clarisse looked ahead too, a little caught-off guard by the way the girl had responded. Maybe she was ashamed too. With understanding, Clarisse decided to brush it off; her dad always told her that patience was a virtue. She didn't know what the word "virtue" meant but she assumed it means that it's a good thing to have.

"What's your name?" Clarisse asked, trying again in her attempt to break the ice. But again, the girl didn't answer; in fact, she didn't even try this time.

Clarisse was beginning to feel a little hopeless and annoyed in her failed attempts to become acquainted with this new girl. "My name's Clarisse, I live in A14 with my daddy."

Suddenly, the girl turned away from her and peeked around the corner, toward the parking lot. She glanced, and then turned back, still not speaking.

Clarisse was close to giving up now. Maybe the girl was just a tourist, and maybe she was disgusted with her. But she still wondered why she looked the way she did.

"What are you doing here?" Clarisse asked. She decided that if the girl didn't answer, she'd get up and leave.

But for once, the girl did respond. She gave a harsh whisper, "Watching."

Clarisse raised her eyebrows in awe and curiousity. "Watching for what?"

Unfortunately, the girl didn't answer that time, and Clarisse sighed, fearing they were back at square one.

Clarisse decided now wasn't the time. Maybe the girl would be there tomorrow, and maybe then she'd speak to her.

"I'm going in now," Clarisse told her. She walked down the steps and called over her shoulder, "Good bye!"

The girl didn't say it back. She only turned and looked at the parking lot again.

Clarisse frowned and made her way back to room A14. She stuck the key into the slot, waiting for the small light to flash green, and slowly opened the door.

Her father was still sleep.

Clarisse decided to keep watching the girl from the window.

For a few minutes, the girl continued to sit there, constantly glancing around the corner toward the parking lot. Then, there came the sound of a car door shutting. The girl looked again, with a sense of urgency this time, and then frantically stood up and entered room 52B.

Clarisse kept watching, waiting to see who it was that caused the girl to react this way, but from behind Clarisse was the sound of her father shifting in bed and coughing.

"What are you doing, Rissy?" her dad asked

She stepped away from the window. "Nothing."

He yawned and cleared his throat. "Don't be staring out the window, you know how Bob feels about that."

Clarisse sighed and paid the outside one last glance for the night, but from where she was standing, she couldn't see who'd shut the car door and caused the girl to enter the motel room.

Over the next three days, around the same time, the girl sat at that spot at the top of the stairs, repeatedly glancing over her shoulder at the parking lot. On two of those three days, Clarisse went to visit her again and try to befriend her. But both times were in vain, ending with the girl running into her room at the sound of the car door shutting.

On the third day, Clarisse decided to fess up to her father.

But she knew she had to do so in such a way that her father wouldn't get her in trouble. She didn't want to be grounded from the TV again. He'd once grounded her from it for an entire week, and it had been torture. She'd already read all the books in her suitcase at least _twice_ and filled up all her coloring books. There was positively nothing to do here.

"Daddy?" she said to him an hour before dinner.

"Yes?" he said, propped up against the pillows on his bed and flipping through a magazine.

"Um..." She glanced at the window, not knowing how to tell him without raising suspicion upon herself.

She looked down and fumbled with the drawstring on her shorts, and her dad looked up at her from the magazine. "What's up, Rissy?"

She looked back at the window, and then at him. "There's a girl who sits outside a lot."

"Is there?" he said, looking back down at the magazine.

"Uh-huh. And, um... she..."

Again, her father looked up at her, and that's when she realized there was no way for her to tell him without outright admitting she'd gone outside without his permission. So she just spilled the beans. "I keep trying to talk to her and be friends with her but she won't talk back to me."

Her dad set down the magazine, and she braced herself for a talking-to and for her punishment.

"Rissy, I don't appreciate you going outside without asking me first."

"I know..." she murmured.

He paused, and then brushed a hand through her hair. "But I get it. It's boring here and there's nobody to talk to, right?"

Clarisse nodded, feeling a little better.

"Bob is a little full of himself and doesn't let any of us have fun. And it _sucks."_

Clarisse couldn't help but smile a tiny bit and look up at him.

"How about this... if she wants, you can invite her over for dinner tonight. Maybe if she got to know you a little better and we made her feel at home, maybe she'll feel a little more comfortable."

Clarisse sat up with joy at her eyes. " _Really?"_

"Yes, really. That sound good?"

Clarisse nodded and wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you thank you thank you _thank you!"_

He laughed softly and hugged her back. "Why don't you go see if she's out there now? I'll order pizza."

"Okay!" Clarisse stood up and jumped off the bed. She took the key from the TV stand and raced outside. Sure enough, the girl was sitting at the top of the steps, but this time she was humming to herself and staring contently up at birds in a tree.

Clarisse had never heard the girl's real voice before, nor had she seen her look... not serious.

"Hey!" Clarisse called up to her, and the girl looked down at her. Suddenly she looked serious again.

Clarisse walked up the steps and stood in front of her. "Do you want to come have pizza with us?"

The girl seemed a little off-put by the question, and she turned and looked the parking lot again. This time, she spoke. "Why?"

"Because it'll be fun!" Clarisse sat down. " _Please?"_

The girl turned and looked at the parking lot again, and then back to Clarisse. "Will it take long?"

"Um..." Clarisse felt a small bit of disappointment. Why didn't the girl want to stay long? Why didn't she like her? "Not too long, if you don't want to."

The girl thought for a moment, looked over at the parking lot once more, looked up at the sky, and then nodded. "...okay."

Clarisse stood up. "Let's go."

Her excitement had since started to deteriorate. How could she have much fun having the girl over, knowing that she wanted to leave as quickly as possible?

Why did she have to leave so soon anyway?

It took a half hour for the pizza to arrive. In the meantime, while Clarisse's father sat in their little kitchenette and focused on his laptop, the two girls sat side by side on her bed and tried to watch the television. The girl appeared confused and a little timid. Whenever Clarisse laughed at the cartoon, the girl tried to share her joy, but it was clear that she didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. So Clarisse shut it off and looked for something else to entertain them. She reached under her bed and opened up her suitcase, revealing all of her coloring books and worn chapter books. She pulled out the stack of coloring books, zipped up her suitcase, and dropped it to the side of her bed for later.

Clarisse picked one up and opened it to the first page. "This coloring book I got from my aunt for my birthday. It's full of horses and ponies and stuff." She flipped through and told the girl all their names. "I colored them pink mostly because it used to be my favorite color- not anymore though. It's only my third favorite color, and purple is my second favorite color, and blue is my first favorite color now."

The girl seemed confused, but she listened and gave Clarisse her full attention.

Clarisse shut the coloring book and pulled out another one. "I got this one from the food share at the church. See- I like this one because I used a lot of blue. I used a lot on this page and this page..." She flipped through each page. "There's Jesus and the angels, and I used blue to color in their halos and stuff."

When Clarisse looked up, the girl had turned to look out the window. She seemed fixated on something, shifting side by side as if trying to get a better view.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Clarisse asked her.

The girl turned back around. "Doing what?"

"You keep looking at something."

The girl shrunk down a little. "I'm just watching."

"Watching for what?"

"Nothing," she responded adamantly.

Clarisse started to get the hunch that the girl was hiding something, something _bad_.

"Is it somebody from school?" Clarisse asked.

"What?" The girl looked up, appearing confused.

"Is somebody from school being mean to you?"

The girl just stared at her for a few moments, then admitted, "I don't go to school."

This made Clarisse even more confused, and she began to feel really, truly uneasy. What was up with this girl? Why didn't she talk much? Why did she spend so much time outside? And _what was she constantly watching for?_

Outside, a car door shut, and the girl appeared wide-eyed and rigid. She began to get up from the bed, until Clarisse's father spoke up. "That might be the pizza guy."

With a grunt, he stood up with his cane and hobbled on over to the front door. Sure enough, a young-looking guy in a red polo, khakis, and a black cap with their restaurant logo on it, handed Clarisse's father their pizza box and accepted his cash.

Clarisse's father shut the door and set the pizza down onto the small countertop. "Let me serve these up real quick..." He pulled out a few paper plates. While he was divvying up the slices, Clarisse was watching the girl, who was standing up and staring at Clarisse's father and at the door with terror.

He turned to Clarisse. " _Big slice of cheese for Rissy, and_..." After he handed her the plate, he turned and picked up another. He looked over at the girl. "Would you like some too?"

The girl just stared at him unresponsively, and Clarisse noted the way her hands were shaking, just ever so slightly, as if she was freezing.

"Here." He set a slice onto the plate, shut the pizza box, and set her plate on top of it. "If you want it, it's right here, okay?"

The girl, semi-jaw-slacked, nodded and turned back to Clarisse.

Clarisse looked at her dad, wondering if he had caught wind of how weird the girl was, and he looked at her the same way. _See?_

"So what's your name?" Clarisse's dad asked her, in as gentle of a tone as he could.

The girl looked at him, and then at Clarisse. When she realized that they were both staring at her, she began to appear panicked. "Um..."

"Have you been living here for a while?"

She looked over at the window with an intensity that didn't belong on the face of a presumed seven-year-old.

"Hey, is something the matter?" He asked her. He was looking at her in a certain way, and Clarisse recognized it as the way he'd looked at her when she'd first told him about the kids at school who were treating her horribly.

The girl looked back at Clarisse's father. "I-I..."

Suddenly, there came the sound of a car door shutting from outside, and she stopped shaking and stood up straight, looking like a deer in the headlights. She turned and began running her fingers over the covers on Clarisse's bed until she found something. Her room key.

Without a word, she fled out of the door. Clarisse chased after her, despite her father's shouts at her not to.

Clarisse stopped right outside, and saw the girl just about to open her motel room door.

This is, until a man turned the corner. The girl looked at him, and stepped back. Clarisse watched as the man gripped her arm and hissed something at her. In response, the girl dropped her head. It was as if the panic inside her had just shut off like a switch. In fact, it was as if _everything_ in her had just shut off like a switch.

The man snatched the key from her, opened the door, and quite literally shoved her in. He looked more angry than Clarisse had ever seen somebody look in her entire life.

Then he turned his head and looked right at her. And just like the panic inside the girl, the man's anger just sort of shut off. He stared at her, and Clarisse stared right back. She wondered who the man was. Was it the girl's dad? An uncle? A brother?

"Clarisse _, get in here right now_ ," her father demanded. Clarisse watched the man as she entered her room, and he did exactly the same.

After Clarisse shut the door, she looked at her dad. "There was a man," she told him.

"Was it her dad?" He asked, and Clarisse shrugged.

"Maybe."

Her father sighed. "Okay. Did you see what room they're in?"

"Room 52B."

He nodded. "Alright, I'll call Bob later."

"Why, what's wrong?" Clarisse asked.

"Don't worry about it, Rissy. Look," he waved her over and looked her directly in the eyes, "I do not want you going back outside alone, okay?" Just as Clarisse was about to protest, he added, " _I mean it_."

Clarisse gave up and nodded with a frown. "Okay."

"Clarisse, I'm serious. I don't want you trying to talk to her again."

"But dad-"

"But nothing. Until things are cleared up, I don't want you going back outside without me, and I don't want you trying to talk to that girl again. Got it?"

Clarisse just dropped her eyes from her dad.

"Clarisse, you will not-"

" _I've got it!"_ She snapped at him.

Her father just shook his head with a sigh. "No more TV for tonight."

Clarisse groaned and lie down on her bed. She turned her back to him.

She wanted so desperately to know what was wrong. She refused to give up until the girl told her. She had to find out. She _had to_ know.

The following evening, after dinner, Clarisse's father hid the room key and told her she was to go to sleep at the same time he did. The day had gone by okay, he hadn't mentioned what had happened the day before. Clarisse had even been planning to go back outside after her father fell asleep, just like before. But her father had outsmarted her. For the most part.

With the lights off, Clarisse lie down and shut her eyes. Before long, she began snoring softly. Not even five minutes later, her father began to snore as well. Only difference was, his snores were real.

Clarisse turned silently and looked at him. There. Now she could go out.

She slid out of bed as softly as possible, making as much noise as a tiny mouse as she crept toward the door.

She opened it softly and slowly, and slipped out. She didn't shut it all the way, because she didn't have the key. But she figured it was safe, that her father wouldn't wake up and notice the open door.

As Clarisse walked outside, she figured the girl would already be inside by now. In such a case, she might have to resort to spying on them through the window.

But to her surprise, the girl was outside still. She was staring downward and sitting on her hands.

Clarisse ascended the steps toward her. "Hey," she whispered.

But the girl didn't look at her.

"What's going on?" Clarisse asked.

The girl, as expected, didn't say anything. But this time, it shook fear into Clarisse.

From behind the door, she could hear a man's voice say, " _See_ , I told you."

Then, in the most haunting whisper, the girl looked up at her and said, _"Go home_."

Before Clarisse could ask what she meant, the door to 52B opened, and the man from yesterday smiled at her. "What are you doing out so late?" He asked her.

Her voice got caught in her throat. He was smiling at her, smiling at her in the friendly way their neighbors smiled her, but it didn't feel like he was so friendly.

"Are you locked out?" He asked her, and she shook her head. "Do you need to borrow a phone or something?"

Suddenly, another voice from inside mumbled something, but Clarisse couldn't hear what it was.

000

Before she knew what was going on, the man had snatched her up and was bringing her into their room. She tried to thrash out at him and holler, but he held his hand over her mouth and handed her to another man.

The man holding her now pushed her down onto the only bed in the room and held her there by her arms. She tried kicking him, but he was on her. She trembled violently while squirming under him. "Stop it," he told her. But she didn't stop it. She was scared, and she wanted to go home. She felt sick and out of place, like whatever was happening wasn't even real.

She couldn't see much of her surroundings with the man on top of her, but she could see a _third_ man standing next to the door. His back was to them, and he stared out the peephole with his hands over his ears.

She couldn't see where the girl was, or where the first man was. But she could hear him. "This one good?"

The man above her let go of her arms and turned to the first man. "Yeah, awesome, she kind of reminds me of Aly."

Who was Aly? She wondered. And why was the man taking off his clothes?

She began to cry, and everything felt like a terrible blur. With her clothes off he began hurting her, doing something that hurt more anything else she'd ever felt. It lasted for a long time, and she wanted it to stop. She hoped her father would wake up, and find the door open, and come up to room 52B, and take her away from the disgusting thing that was happening to her.

After a while, it was over. The man stopped, and for a few minutes, he just lie above her, breathing hard. " _Fuck_ ," he muttered.

"Do you need me to get the bathroom ready?" The first man said, and the man on Clarisse nodded.

"Go ahead."

He got off of her, and she was ready to leap up and run, but he wrapped his fingers around her neck and held her there. _"Don't move a damn muscle_."

She didn't, only because she was scared he'd start hurting her again.

He began putting his clothes back on, and she looked up to see the first man taking a pile of towels, sheets, and a big plastic thing into the bathroom.

000

The man who'd hurt her went into the bathroom as well, and Clarisse looked at the man next to the door.

"I want to go home," she whispered at him.

He turned and looked at her, and she noticed how red his eyes were. "I know," he whispered back to her.

" _Please_ let me go home," she begged quietly. He just looked away from her helplessly and went back to staring outside.

The first man picked her up from the bed and brough her into the bathroom. On the floor, they'd made a set up. There were two towels on top of the plastic sheet, and the plastic sheet was on top of two dark bed sheets.

Clarisse could see the girl standing inside the bathtub, weeping and covering her face.

The man lie Clarisse down on the set up, and she wondered with dread if he was going to do it to her too, as she still hadn't been allowed to put her clothes back on.

But he left the room, and Clarisse looked up at the girl.

"I'm sorry," the girl cried to her. "I'm sorry."

Clarisse wondered if the girl had ever been hurt too, the way she'd just been.

The man who'd hurt Clarisse came in, and suddenly the girl began screaming at him. She kept screaming and crying the words "stop" and "no," and it took Clarisse a moment to realize that he was holding a knife.

He knelt above her, and Clarisse screamed and begged too, holding her hands up in an attempt to fend him off. But he just pushed her hands away, and he brought the knife down.

Following an intense slashing pain in her throat, Clarisse couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't even make a sound. She could just... feel and hear. She could feel something warm on her neck, and she knew it was blood. She could hear the girl crying loudly.

Clarisse didn't want to die, not here, not like this, not _now._

But after a few more seconds of listening to the girl's terrorized wailing and of seeing the man standing above her, her ears rang loudly, her vision blurred...

and that was it.

Her body was wrapped up, all burrowed in towels and plastic and sheets.

The girl sat in the empty tub, crying and rocking back and forth with her face in her knees.

She looked up with horror when somebody entered the bathroom.

The man with red eyes knelt down next to the tub. "Come on," he said to her softly. "We've gotta go."

She exhaled shakily and looked down. Numbly, she stood up and raised her arms to him. He lifted her up and carried her down to the car, where Clarisse's body had already been stuffed into the trunk.

Soon, everybody piled into the car. It was dark and quiet out. The car was turned on, and the radio was the only noise in the world as they pulled out the Grady Motel.

The police were notified of Clarisse's disappearance early the next morning. But by then, it was far too late.


	2. Guilty

AN: I have a confession... I legitimately considered deleting Powerless. Just getting rid of it and wiping away every trace of its existence. I really can't stand it. It's a legitimately bad story. I went back and cleaned it up a bunch, but it doesn't make up for the story's big flaws. Jonathan is too... "villain-y"; The story was rushed; I didn't proofread; some of the dialogue is just... awful; I didn't properly plan it all out. I just don't like it. I think about this story a lot, and I want to continue it just to get it all out of my head. But overall, I just hate it. You ever read something you wrote when you were a young teen and it's super cringe-worthy? This story is that for me. I started it as a freshman in high school, and it's just so _bad_ to me now, and yet I am forced to continue it (not really, but I feel obligated to). I'm glad you guys enjoy it, and I love getting your reviews and hearing your feedback. I appreciate everyone who reads this. Otherwise, I would have deleted it a _long_ time ago. I hope you guys enjoy what's to come.

xxx

The warm, cozy little house glowed softly with the sunlight streaming in through the windows. The aroma of blueberry pie filled the kitchen and dining room, and Old Lady Daniels hummed contently, standing next to the oven, while Greg sat at the dining room table with a short stack of white paper and a red tool box full of crayons and colored pencils.

The afternoon was almost pleasant, and Greg almost felt cheerful. His mother didn't normally allow him too many sweets, and so Old Lady Daniels never failed to compensate for the lack of them.

But there was a bad feeling in his stomach, the same kind of feeling he got before the dentist, or the same kind he got when he opened the shower curtain and found a nasty spider inside the bathtub.

"Old Lady Daniels?" he said, and she shot him a stern look.

" _Gregory."_

"I mean- Mrs. Daniels?"

And then she smiled. "Yes?"

He looked down anxiously, set down his crayon, and then looked back up at her. "...Is Wirt coming home?"

Mrs. Daniels looked almost shocked by the question, and then her expression softened to something more solemn. "Of _course_ he's coming home. He'll be back in a couple of hours at _most."_

"Are you sure?"

"I'm 110% sure." She stuck an oven mitt over her hand and opened the oven up. With a gasp, Greg leapt up from his chair and sped over to marvel at the beautiful, golden-crusted pie emerging.

"That looks fan _tas_ tic!" Greg enthused, watching as Mrs. Daniels set it onto the stove and pulled the oven mitt off. She wielded a knife and set the blade on the edge of the pan. It eased right through the crust with a satisfying, light crisp and the steaming, sweet, rich filling. She did it another three times, slicing the pie evenly into eight pieces.

She reached into the cupboard above the stove and retrieved two plates. "Which piece do you want?"

Greg examined each piece thoroughly, and then pointed at the one with the most crust on the back end of it. "That one!"

Mrs. Daniels served him his chosen slice. "One for Gregory..."

She slid a second slice of pie onto the other plate. "One for me..."

From atop the fridge, and fetched a thin box of plastic wrap and tore off a square of it, then covered the rest of the pie with it. "And we'll save a couple of pieces for your mother and for your brother."

Greg smiled with his mouth full of pie. "Okay!"

Meanwhile, the hallway outside of court room A2 was not quite as bustling as it was eight months ago. However, Wirt's body ached with the stress-induced tension, and there was the dreadful feeling of nausea sitting in the middle of his chest.

"You alright?" Sara asked him. He nodded, not opening his mouth in fear of bile splurging out and landing down on the brown carpet.

After a minute of silence, he gulped. "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."

"Wirt, you didn't drag me into this - you _know_ this isn't your fault."

" _Actually,_ it is. And now my mom is going to have to pay some big fine, and I'm going to live the rest of my life as a felon, and I might have to go to _prison-"_

"They'll tear you limb from limb in prison," Matt muttered from a couple of feet away, and Jason glared at him.

"Shut up, _Matthew,"_ Jason shot back, and Wirt felt a whole new level of overwhelmed by the fight that was surely about to ensue.

" _Stop it,"_ Sara hissed at them like a mother to her brawling sons. "Not _now."_

"Yeah, this is _your_ fault," Jason said, and Matt looked at Sara.

"He's still doing it!"

Sara pinched the bridge of her nose with exasperation. "Well, it's not like he's _wrong,_ Matt."

" _What?"_ He gawked. "You're going to say it was _my_ fault, but not _his_ fault?" He gestured toward Wirt, who desperately did not want to be the center of this argument.

" _Yes!"_ Sara and Jason replied in livid unison.

"You kept _hassling_ him, man! Going all, ' _Do it, do it, we won't get caught-'"_ Jason, even with his... _pinched-_ sounding voice, nailed the nearly spot-on impression.

" _He_ could've said _no -_ I wasn't threatening him or anything! It was his backpack, his choice, so I don't know why nobody's holding _him_ accountable..."

"Can you guys _please_ stop?" Wirt protested with his hands over his face.

"You stay out of this, Wirt-"

And with that came an uproar of Sara, Jason, and Matt arguing and talking over each other, leaving Wirt to stand in helpless silence until a man's voice cut through them.

" _Enough!"_

The three arguing silenced themselves, and Wirt, although startled by the loud voice, was grateful for the bailiff for intervening.

"You guys are going in now - and I swear to the lord Jesus, if you act like this in there, the judge will tear you to pieces."

Matt and Sara verbalized their confirmations, "Yes, sir," "Understood," while Wirt and Jason nodded silently.

The trial lasted only about an hour. Jason and Sara told their sides of what happened at Wal-Mart, Matt and Wirt confessed their guilt, and they were given their sentence: thirty-six community service hours, on guilty charges of Class B shoplifting. It didn't go nearly as badly as Wirt had thought. But he knew Matt was livid at him, and that his mother was beyond disappointed.

When the session was dismissed, Matt stood up and walked out without acknowledging the group. His demeanor was calm, the kind of composure you put on when you're fuming and don't want to show it. Wirt wondered how Sara could have ever gone out with a person like him. Short-tempered, condescending... narcissistic, maybe? A downright bully.

Wirt felt a hand on his shoulder, and he whipped around to see his mother. Although smiling, She looked melancholy and drained with bags under her eyes.

"Ready?"

He nodded, looking to Sara and Jason. "I'll see you guys later."

They both said goodbye to him, and he and his mother walked out of the room, out of the building, and to the car in a morose silence.

As they got into the car and strapped into their belts, Elspeth asked, "Do you think we should surprise your brother and pick something up from McDonalds?"

" _Mmm,_ I don't like McDonalds."

Elspeth chuckled softly. "Not for you, for Greg, nerd. You think I don't know that?"

Wirt looked away from her and gazed out the window, having no response for her.

Her smile faded, and she sighed, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot, on their way to McDonald's, then home.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Keenan's day was _nearly_ perfect. His favorite choreographer, Melissa, had been at dance class today, and she'd begun teaching them a contemporary combo to a really cool piece of orchestral music. He was never a huge fan of that kind of music - violins and brass instruments didn't intrigue him all that much - but this piece of music had been super cool (his best friend Marcus would call it a _banger_ ), and the choreography that went with it... it left Keenan speechless.

His dad picked him up at 5:34, just a few minutes after class ended. As always, they carried a pleasant conversation in the car. Keenan told his dad about his English project on the book Anne Frank - he had to pretend to be a Jewish person in hiding, and write at least ten entries about how he lives - and that he can do seven consecutive _a la seconde_ s, and his father told him that Brynn, ten months old, had looked at a picture on him on the refrigerator and said, "...Keeny!"

As soon as Keenan entered the house, however, his mother stood up from the couch, holding a piece of paper he recognized immediately.

"Keenan, I need to talk to you."

He dropped his backpack and walked up to her like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs.

Keith left them alone, greeting Brynn who was in her bouncy chair, bouncing and screeching gleefully to PJ Masks.

Keenan and his mother sat across from each other at the table, and she slid the paper into his vision. "I found this in your room."

Keenan stared at it, too ashamed to face his mother.

"Why did you hide this from me?" She asked him.

He didn't answer her. She hadn't known about his multiple failed algebra tests, or about how much math homework made him feel like he was in a foreign country with no knowledge of its language. Until now, as he was forced to face the note his teacher had told him to give to his mother with his final report card of the year, expressing her concerns with Keenan's difficulty picking up on her lessons.

"I wouldn't have been mad at you, sweetie."

"Dad would have been," he muttered, looking down at his lap.

"And what makes you think that?"

"I mean-" He sighed, looking up at her, "Not _mad,_ but... he would've made me quit dance for the summer for tutoring or something..."

"Well, you won't have to quit dance..."

"But I have to do tutoring, right?"

His mom nodded, and he slumped in his chair with an exasperated groan.

" _Hey,_ no attitude. You're lucky I'm not grounding you for lying to me."

"Yeah, I know..."

"Math isn't for everybody. I totally get it. But we need to be sure you're comfortable enough with it so you can do well with high school math. Ms. Olson wants to see you succeed, your father and I want to see you succeed, and I'm sure you want to see yourself do well, right?"

Keenan looked down at the table and nodded.

"It's not every single day, it's only Tuesdays and Thursdays. The more effort you put in and more quickly you do it, the more time you'll have to enjoy your summer."

"Okay," Keenan murmured.

"I love you," his mother said.

"Love you too."

He turned around to glance at his dad and at his sister. His dad was bouncing his little sister in his lap, and his dad, having sat with Brynn and watched this show with her so often, sang the theme song. There was a big grin on her little face.

"Are you going to tell Dad?"

"I'm going to have to let him know." Alison grinned. "But I'll bend the truth a little, okay?"

Keenan grinned back. "Okay."


	3. AN: A Fond Farewell

Sooo, uh…

I decided to abandon this fic. I can't bring myself to keep writing it, nothing can possibly motivate me to do so. I started this when I was fourteen - I'm eighteen now. And I walked myself into an electrically-wired fence when I decided to make it a trilogy. At this rate, I'd be 25 by the time I finished it. I really don't like Powerless at all. The only pride I take it at all in it is the fact that it's the longest thing I've written, and that's very little pride to begin with.

So, I'm just going to talk about my problems with it, and then tell you what I had planned for the next two stories.

I didn't plan it out well. At all. I started it in the middle of the night when I was fourteen, because I used to have this weird fixation on stories of abuse and r*pe, and I still kind of do. Not in a sexualised way - it's not that I'm "into" it. I genuinely have no idea why. I think I just like the angst and the intense emotional turmoil surrounding it. It's easy to get absorbed and emotionally invested in it. So right after I got into Over the Garden Wall, I started this. And it's absolute shit. It is. I've tried going back and fixing some things, but it's still bad.

The inconsistencies are ridiculous. I contradict myself in it all the time. Honestly, that's really lazy.

Jonathan is a bad character. No, not just a bad person (because that's _abundantly_ clear). But I didn't initially put a lot of thought into his character. I'll be delving a little bit into his backstory in a minute.

I didn't include enough of the Unknown. The Unknown is the spirit of the show, and it's _obvious_ that it only came as a second thought to me.

I rushed a lot of it. The story got some attention right off the bat, and I wanted it so badly that I rushed through chapters. Around the time Sara's sister died, that's when I would write two chapters in my spanish class a day while listening to Game Grumps playing Ocarina of Time.

So now - what I had planned.

Soldier's Orders (the title is about Stephen mostly - the song is from Silent Hill: Homecoming, and I absolutely recommend it). After the shoplifting incident, Wirt and Matt get community service hours. So Wirt spends that as a volunteer tutor at the public library, the one Allison takes Keenan to for help with math over the summer.

Wirt and Allison inevitably meet again, there's some tension, but they engage in small talk here and there, Allison bringing up once that she knew what was going on with Jonathan and that he was living with his mother. Elspeth and Allison become friends (Allison's kinda iffy about it). Wirt and Keenan become pretty close, their mothers spend a lot of time together. Allison, Keenan, Keith, and Brynn become a part of their little family.

July 3rd, 2016. Keenan comes down with the flu, so he stays at Wirt's house while everyone else goes shopping for their 4th of July barbeque. (Keep this in mind because this is important).

In the meantime, Frank, Jonathan, and Stephen have been doing their own shit. Staying in motel rooms, abducting kids, abusing them, and killing them. Stephen only helps because Jonathan gets him drugs, and he also does it to keep Jonathan from going after Wirt (...again).

Frank decides one day, "Yo, get me the child porn we did back in the day."

And Jonathan's like, "Uuhh, funny story there, it's actually back at Elspeth's house and I'm kiiinda forbidden from going back there….."

But Frank's like, "Bruh, I don't give a FUCK, get it for me, or you don't get to get with Angel anymore." ("Angel" is his seven year old daughter, she's like a rape doll to them. She'll come up later too)

So Jonathan's like, "Alright, fine."

Back to July 3rd. Jonathan uses Frank's car and drives out to their house, staking out for an hour or two until they all leave. Once they do, he sneaks into the house, intending to quickly get the pictures, and then book it the fuck out of there.

 _However_. Keenan is sleeping on the couch, and he wakes to them in the house. He doesn't know who they are, but obviously he's terrified. While they're in garage getting a screw driver, he's creeping over to grab one of those fireplace tools.

But they see him, and there's just this moment where they all stare at eachother in fear.

And Jonathan, afraid that Keenan'll say something if they just leave, just straight-up grabs him and throws him in the trunk of the car. Unintentional kidnapping in a state of panic.

They take Keenan back to the motel.

Elspeth, Allison, Keith, Wirt, Gregg, and Brynn come back and find Keenan missing. Panic ensues.

THE UNKNOWN. There's a whole Salem Witch Trials situation going on. People found guilty of being affiliated with the Beast are executed via hanging. The judge is Enoch, and the jury is the pumpkin people. The first trial Wirt witnesses is a little girl whose name they can never get right: Clara, Cassie… she's found guilty, and Wirt is horrified to see her killed.

Back at the motel. Keenan's freaked out obviously. He doesn't know any of their names, so he refers to them as Red Eyes (Stephen), The One Who Took Me (Jonathan), and Angel's Father (Frank). He only properly meets Angel, who doesn't talk, doesn't do anything unless she's told to.

From the beginning, Stephen promises he's going to help him escape. Keenan asks him if Angel's Father and The One Who Took Me are pedophiles. Stephen doesn't really answer, just tells him that he won't let anything bad happen to him. Keenan, alone and at the mercy of his captors, can't really help but trust him.

In the meantime, the family is distressed, as you can imagine. Aside from that, Wirt's also being bullied and tormented by Matt.

One day, Keenan's forced to watch Frank rape Angel, with Jonathan holding him in his lap securely. He decided then that he can't trust Red Eyes, and if he's going to escape, he's going to have to do it himself.

So, when Jonathan tells Stephen to go run an errand for him, Keenan slips him a note, requesting that he buy him sleeping pills. Stephen gets them for him. And you know what Keenan does?

He straight-up drugs Jonathan (I hadn't entirely figured out how). And so Jonathan sleeps like a log that night, allowing Keenan to slip out and escape.

He goes to payphone with a few quarters he took before he left. He tries to call his mom, but it's late, and she doesn't pick up.

A car pulls up next to him, and it's Red Eyes, telling him he'll drive him the rest of the way, but they have to be quick. Keenan reluctantly lets him, but Jonathan, frantically woken up by Frank, realizes they're gone and goes after them.

UNKNOWN. Wirt's standing at the sight of the hangings. He's disgusted and melancholy at the sight of all the people who'd been executed (this would include Lorna, represented by Allison, but I wasn't sure how to slip her into the story - she and Auntie Whispers would probably aid Wirt and give him shelter whenever he came to the Unknown).

Then he sees somebody standing on the edge of a platform with a sack over their head and a noose around their neck. Wirt goes up the stairs and approaches them. He recognises the shirt - the oversized faded blue DC shirt that belonged to Keith, which Keenan had been wearing the day he was taken. He pulls the sack off his head - his hair is drenched, his lips are blue, his skin is pale. It dawns on him, and Wirt, in the real world, sneaks out runs out to the woods over by the park near the graveyard, where Jonathan had gotten ahold of Keenan and, out of desperation and rage, was trying to kill him.

Out in the woods, Wirt runs into Matt, who's chillin' and shooting cans with his handy dandy rifle. Jonathan finds them, tries to take Matt's gun.

The two get into a full blown fist fight over it, but Wirt winds up grabbing it, and sends a bullet through Jonathan's chest. Matt finishes him off with four bullets in his head. The witch of the west is dead - _the wickedest witch there ever was._

They (Stephen, Wirt, Matt, and a very tired, but very hysterical Keenan) head on over to the police station. Stephen turns himself, Frank, and Jonathan in. Allison, Keith, Elspeth, and Brynn go to the police station. The police tell them who took him (when Allison finds out it was Jonathan, she literally crumbles to the floor, dry sobbing and clinging to Keith's hand), and also that he was dead. Emotional reunion. Lots of crying and hugging. That's basically the end. Keenan doesn't tell anybody about what happened there.

And the third story, which I haven't decided on a title for, but it might've been called Halloween (the Chris Garneau song) or Dirty Night Clowns (also a Chris Garneau song). This one revolves more around Greg.

It's been a few years (yes, I hate age-ups, but bear with me). Greg's eleven and Wirt's twenty. Since then, Elspeth died in a car accident, and so they were basically taken under the wing of Aunt Allison and Uncle Keith, until Wirt felt bad for relying on them while they already have a teenage son and very young daughter to care for.

So he and Sara get an apartment together, and again, things are content. Greg gets braces. And Wirt comes to realize over time that Greg doesn't remember _anything_ about his dad. Forgets what he looks like, what he was like, and he forgets what happened to him.

But Greg still suffers from panic attacks every now and again, though he just can't place the source of his fears. All he knows is that he hates the dark, and he doesn't like to be left alone. Greg doesn't have many friends at school, despite being very sweet and friendly.

Then this new girl comes to his school. Her name is Cecelia, and she's very shy and quiet. It turns out she's actually thirteen and in the sixth grade, having been held back two years for unknown (bah-dum *tsss*) reasons. So right off the bat, Greg sees her as a potential friend.

But she always pushes him away, rejecting his attempts to be friendly and become acquainted. But this is Greg, and Greg never gives up.

So he makes her lunch one day, all wrapped up in a cute little paper bag. And then, it's like a flip is switched. Greg begins to notice that sometimes, she is completely invested in him, clinging to his every word and following him everywhere. Other times, she regresses back into her quiet, reserved self.

And then, _then,_ once her single mother and Wirt meet and are okay with the two hanging out at each other's houses, Cecelia winds up meeting Wirt, and she has this intense fixation on him. Like, it's uncomfortable for everybody involved. She's always hugging him or stroking his arm or his leg and trying to kiss him either on his face or on his hands or something. And if it weren't for the fact that Greg was so happy having a best friend, Wirt would've not allowed her to come over anymore.

Greg tells him about how much her mood shifts and how almost off-putting it is. But Sara brings up something to them - Cecelia is extremely forgetful, something Greg's picked up on too.

(At this point, Greg and Cecelia would have ventured through the Unknown together. It'd be very quiet and post-apocalyptic. I've put very little thought into it, but on the spot, I've decided they'd meet these two little fairies. One is very hyper and talkative, the other is very sly and clever. They tell Greg and Cecelia about the "Garden of Ghosts," and they go out searching for it. It turns out the Garden of Ghosts is the execution sight from the trials of the Beast affiliates, and Cecelia seems heartbroken and distressed by one in particular).

So Wirt brings it up to Cecelia's mother. He mentions the mood shifts, the forgetfulness, and her inappropriate behavior, and upon hearing about that third one, she becomes stone cold and accusingly doesn't allow Cecelia to be around them. Obviously, with Wirt's past and childhood trauma, he's stressed and scared that somebody would think of him in that way, so he ducks out of it, not wanting to be involved or even mention her name around the house.

Meanwhile, Greg feels like something just _isn't right._ And his fears are confirmed when she comes to school with her hair cut short in a drastic, sloppy way, as if it had been violently cut out with safety scissors.

So he turns to Keenan, who is still very much a child at heart and totally down to go along with Greg's super secret mission to find out what's happening with Cecelia.

But as soon as Keenan lays eyes on her, after dropping Greg off at school, he just softens and becomes completely serious. He recognizes her, and it takes him back to watching her in the motel room, lying naked and still on the bed with her eyes glazed over and her face blank. He calls Wirt, frantically telling him he needs to talk to him.

He and Greg skip school and go back to their house, where he breaks down and tells them about Angel and the three men who were there, one of which he'd witnessed abusing her. It's the first time he's ever told somebody about what happened when he was taken, and it's alarming to watch him cry and ramble on about it. Keenan's never been the kind to hide his emotions, but to see such a positive ray of sunshine flushed and sobbing is startling, to say the least. So Wirt leaves Sara and Greg at home while he and Keenan go to talk to Cecelia's mother.

She confesses that her daughter had been missing from the ages of two years old to nine. She claims to have no idea of what happened to her in that time, but it seems she doesn't even want to.

So Keenan tells her about how he knew her, and the predicament he'd seen her in, and she almost seems to refuse to believe it. But both of them _beg_ her to believe them. She eventually kicks them out.

Wirt's upset that her mother doesn't care, and Keenan's worried sick about her. For about three weeks, they don't hear word back from her mother, and Greg's clearly enduring some form of depression over it.

But one day, she comes by quickly just to discuss something with them. She tells them that she'd started taking Cecelia to see a therapist, and indeed, she showed signs of clear frequent and _severe_ sexual abuse, especially throughout very important developmental stages.

Because of it, she was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. There were three known alters - Cecelia, the quiet "main" one; Cici, the more upbeat, hyper one who loved attention and making new friends, the "child" alter; and Angel, the "doll." The one who endured most of the abuse so Cecelia didn't have to. The one who learned the things her father and others taught her to do (things someone her age shouldn't ever had to learn to do). And the one who believed that the only way to show love and appreciation to men and to gain their approval was by engaging in sexual activity with them. Cecelia's mother apologized for antagonizing them, and thanked them for helping her make herself try to understand her troubled daughter. And from then on, Greg and Cecelia were allowed to be friends again.

And that was basically it.

So, about Jonathan's and Allison's childhood. Jonathan and Allison were raised mostly by their single mother.

Their dad, who, while being a hardworking guy living a nice little house, had anger issues, which led him on a few occasions to physically abuse Jonathan.

He was very traditional and conservative, believing that every girl and woman should be treated like a lady, and so he always treated Allison like a princess, other than a couple occasions when he raised his voice at her.

And so Jonathan developed discreet issues of his own. He loved his sister dearly, but he had this deep resentment toward her bubbling up inside of him. By the time he was ten, he also had some anger issues of his own, but he never took them out on other people. He hurt himself, broke things. Then the babysitter came along.

The babysitter (let's just call him Rich) was there from 8 AM to 5 PM, always there when Jonathan came home from school. And every single day for several months, he would take Jonathan out to the garage and molest him.

One day, out of worry, he asked his sister if the babysitter had ever done anything to her that she didn't like. She told him that he hadn't. He was obviously relieved (albeit a little skeptical) to hear that.

But that night, at dinner, she tells Jonathan out of the blue, "Oh! I don't like it when Rich doesn't bring me my Rainbow Brite video."

And Jonathan freezes, while his mother says, "What?"

Allison elaborates, "Jon asked me if Rich has did anything to me that I don't like."

Their mother looks at him, and asks, "Why'd you ask her that?"

He doesn't answer, just asks to be excused. She allows him, but she confronts him after dinner. He caves and tells her what had been going on. And they didn't see Rich ever again after that.

Sixth grade. Jon meets Franky, a kid who played soccer but otherwise was an outcast. He pitied Jon, and became a "friend." Over time, Frank told him lots of dark secrets, about how his uncle would touch his older sister, and how he'd let him watch, and how he'd even had sex with his sister once while his uncle watched. It horrified Jonathan at first, leaving him unable to eat his lunch underneath the bleachers in the gym. He just stared at Frank as he told him all this with this… _guilty joy_ in his eyes.

Then there was _that_ night. He thought often about what Frank told him. Besides what Rich had done, Jon hadn't really ever thought about sex, until he met Frank. That night, Allison had spilled apple juice all over his handwritten essay for history, causing him to erupt and shout at her. Their mother stopped him, and told him he needed to settle down for the night and go to bed. He stayed up for hours, in fuming rage, before his thoughts turned back to Frank and his sister.

The idea poked into his mind like a needle penetrating skin.

He stood up out of bed and tip-toed toward his little sister's room.

She was lying there with her pink elephant pajamas, having kicked off the covers and was all sprawled out and snoring softly.

This was his _five_ -year-old _little_ _ **sister**_ he was staring at from the side of her bed.

He knew it was bad. He knew it was wrong. And he knew how it felt to have it happen. But he'd had it done to him, and _he'd_ turned out fine.

So he shared his first intimate experience with his sleeping baby sister. He felt up her shirt and down her pants before she woke up and grabbed his wrists, stopping him. He panicked, looking at her face. Her eyes looked groggy, but her face clearly screamed, " _What are you doing?_ " He said nothing as he left the room and went back to his own.

He trembled all night long, terrified she was going to tell their mother.

But she never did.

So every few nights, he'd go into her room. And he'd just do it. The guilt lessened every single time he did it. He justified to himself that she was getting used to it, and that she didn't mind. And that was true, right? Her crying became softer. She resisted less. That _must_ mean it wasn't all that bad for him to do it anymore.

Jonathan's actual first time engaging in intercourse was his junior year of high school, when he sexually assaulted a freshman trumpet player during a brass sectional at his house.

She didn't have a ride home, so Jonathan's mother would drive her when she got home. It was just the two, watching TV, before Jonathan asked her to come upstairs to show her something. She did.

And then he did it. He locked the door, he pushed her down onto his bed and, despite her wriggling and screaming, he forced himself inside her and had her for himself. She didn't tell anyone, except for maybe a couple of her friends, who steered clear of him every time he passed by. He didn't care though. He'd done it. And he'd gotten away with it.

…...SO. That's about 98% of the load of things I had inside my brain regarding Powerless. If you want to go ahead and adopt this series, then please feel free do so. I will eat it right up if you do.

Thank you for all the love you gave me during Powerless. I appreciate it very much.


End file.
